The growth and competition in the casino gaming market in recent years and the increasingly sophisticated and complex technology being integrated into the gaming environment, presents both challenges and opportunities to gaming establishment operators. Over recent years, casino revenue has dramatically increased in the area of non-gaming revenue sources such as, hotel and hospitality, retail, dining, entertainment and other casino products or services. Traditionally, patron tracking systems have focused on tracking patrons of electronic gaming machines, table games and other gaming revenue areas such as, bingo and keno. In this traditional scenario, a patron is identified during gaming play by a patron tracking ID card and/or a patron identification number (PIN). The patron tracking system tracks the patron's gaming play and may award patron tracking points, bonuses, and other incentives according to established criteria to promote continued patron loyalty.
In most cases, the patron tracking points earned by play electronic gaming machines, table games and other gaming revenue areas such as, bingo and keno may be redeemed for prizes, such as complimentary meals, merchandise, hotel and services through non-gaming revenue point-of-sales devices linked to the patron tracking system. In these cases, non-gaming casino revenue patron tracking has been limited to the redemption of points and prizes earned by tracking the patron's play at gaming revenue sources. U.S. Pat. No. 5,655,961 teaches a method whereby patron tracking points are redeemed at a redemption counter in the casino for meals or clothing. The patron tracking points, therefore, are an additional inducement to encourage gaming revenue source play. U.S. Pat. No. 7,303,475 further extends this method whereby patrons can redeem their patron tracking points for non-gaming revenue products and services and can earn patron tracking point based on products or services purchases at remote redemption centers.
As non-gaming revenue increases, methods are needed to track and record the patron's purchases (spend). Furthermore, methods are needed to establish the profitability of patron's purchases and to rank and score the patron's net worth in the area of non-gaming revenue purchases. Moreover, there is an emerging category of casino patrons who are not members of the traditional casino patron club of electronic gaming machines, tables games or other gaming revenue sources, yet spend large amount of money in non-gaming revenue areas. Traditional patron tracking systems do not track, rate or score this category of patron.
Some casinos utilize an entirely separate system which may be used to store, independently, both player tracking data and other information related to the casino resort patron. The other information may be relate to the patron's transactions or visit, or originate at, the hotel, restaurant(s), retail outlet(s), spa(s), etc. . . . . There are several problems with this approach. First, a completely different and additional system is used to receive the player tracking data (from the casino management system or CMS) and the other data and to store it. Secondly, such external systems must be tailored specifically to work with the CMS and other systems, such that the data from these systems is understood. In other words, the data from these systems is typically maintained in different formats and must be translated in order to be understood and stored. This is a very laborious and expensive undertaking. Furthermore, it is also difficult and expensive to maintain. For instance, if one of the underlying system changes, then the additional external system may also require corresponding updates.
The present invention is aimed at one or more of the problem as set forth above.